The Toyon Staff in 1984, managing editor Jodi Stutz is pictured center.
About Toyon's Staff
From its outset, Toyon has been student-led. According to Jodi Stutz, a Toyon legend in her own right and namesake to our annual poetry prize, who was editor of the 1983 and 1984 editions, the Toyon’s “mother” is Beverly Dahlen, one of the first editors of the paper.
When contacted Dahlen was surprised and delighted that the project was still going strong in 1984, 30 years after she helped the journal come to life. When asked why “Toyon” was selected as the title, Dahlen claimed it was a kind of shrub and so when it was suggested the first staff thought it was fitting because their project was “for the birds” anyway, a way of saying they didn’t think anyone would care much about their little student paper.
In those early years there were student editors, but not the staff we have today with curated roles and division of labor. Early staff did the job that 25 students now do, reading submissions, setting the type (and in the pre-laser printer days this meant actually typing...on a typewriter), and laying out the book to be printed.
The editor-in-chief has been a mainstay role throughout Toyon’s history, while teams of editors, production, and outreach have all been developed in the last decade. Some staffs, like in 2006, were collectively titled the role of “reader,” while the 1995 issue labeled the staff as “indentured servants,” which we sincerely hope was an attempt at humor.
Prior to 1999, Toyon was produced without a formal class, which proves the most important thing about Toyon and its importance on the HSU campus: this journal is produced by the passion and hard-work of students who want to publish creative work and want to create a space for our stories.
-Asha Galindo, 2018-19 Toyon Writer’s and Artist’s Communities Liaison
When contacted Dahlen was surprised and delighted that the project was still going strong in 1984, 30 years after she helped the journal come to life. When asked why “Toyon” was selected as the title, Dahlen claimed it was a kind of shrub and so when it was suggested the first staff thought it was fitting because their project was “for the birds” anyway, a way of saying they didn’t think anyone would care much about their little student paper.
In those early years there were student editors, but not the staff we have today with curated roles and division of labor. Early staff did the job that 25 students now do, reading submissions, setting the type (and in the pre-laser printer days this meant actually typing...on a typewriter), and laying out the book to be printed.
The editor-in-chief has been a mainstay role throughout Toyon’s history, while teams of editors, production, and outreach have all been developed in the last decade. Some staffs, like in 2006, were collectively titled the role of “reader,” while the 1995 issue labeled the staff as “indentured servants,” which we sincerely hope was an attempt at humor.
Prior to 1999, Toyon was produced without a formal class, which proves the most important thing about Toyon and its importance on the HSU campus: this journal is produced by the passion and hard-work of students who want to publish creative work and want to create a space for our stories.
-Asha Galindo, 2018-19 Toyon Writer’s and Artist’s Communities Liaison
